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About a detent plunger as microswitch

Hi Nick, as the rotators are now, seems to be a way to make available a special detent plunger as microswitch, the moovment of the ball in the detent plunger can be used to on/off a switch. This special detetent plunger will not be for mechanic stop, even it might not stop at all, the only purpose will be to ON an electrical circuit through it when the ball is entered in position and to be OFF when is not.
This will be very useful for action pano, when one must take, say 4 shoots in short time. The camera will be set on high ISO, wide aperture and fast shutter speed, of course, the rotator will trigger the shoots at every stop position.
if it has a simple wire connector, to made an adaptation for various camera remote jack can be left to the users.

I&#039;ll try to make one here, though my posibilites to put in practice are, say, limited.

Re: About a detent plunger as microswitch

Hi Nick, as the rotators are now, seems to be a way to make available a special detent plunger as microswitch, the moovment of the ball in the detent plunger can be used to on/off a switch. This special detetent plunger will not be for mechanic stop, even it might not stop at all, the only purpose will be to ON an electrical circuit through it when the ball is entered in position and to be OFF when is not.
This will be very useful for action pano, when one must take, say 4 shoots in short time. The camera will be set on high ISO, wide aperture and fast shutter speed, of course, the rotator will trigger the shoots at every stop position.
if it has a simple wire connector, to made an adaptation for various camera remote jack can be left to the users.

I&#039;ll try to make one here, though my posibilites to put in practice are, say, limited.

Dorin

Hi Dorin,

Thanks for the great idea. Turning a detent plunger into a micro switch can be challenging. I look forward to your design.

Re: About a detent plunger as microswitch

Hi Nick, I made a simple drawing, starting with the belive that te ball of the detent plunger is compressed by a spring through which a thin lever can be inserted

What you see is something more that I said in previous post
The micro switch have two states
1) in which A-B is ON
2) in which B-C is ON

A-B can be used to trigger the shutter of the camera on (i.e. to take the shoot)B-C can be used to turn on an electric drive labeled as M which walk on rubbered disk mounted under the rotator, the next stop position will OFF the engine and ON the camera, which can be on 2 second self timer,
or trough an electronic timer after shoot the engine will be put again on ON to the next stop.
Anyway, I&#039;m sure that once the detent plunger with switch is available the electronic completion will be a natural extention.

The design of this can be done that the detent plunger and the drive to be side by side not under as it appear in this 2D drawing.

Re: About a detent plunger as microswitch

Hi Nick, I made a simple drawing, starting with the belive that te ball of the detent plunger is compressed by a spring through which a thin lever can be inserted

What you see is something more that I said in previous post
The micro switch have two states
1) in which A-B is ON
2) in which B-C is ON

A-B can be used to trigger the shutter of the camera on (i.e. to take the shoot)B-C can be used to turn on an electric drive labeled as M which walk on rubbered disk mounted under the rotator, the next stop position will OFF the engine and ON the camera, which can be on 2 second self timer,
or trough an electronic timer after shoot the engine will be put again on ON to the next stop.
Anyway, I&#039;m sure that once the detent plunger with switch is available the electronic completion will be a natural extention.

The design of this can be done that the detent plunger and the drive to be side by side not under as it appear in this 2D drawing.

Dorin

Hi Dorin,

Thanks for the design. The travel of the detent plunger is just about 1mm, I am not sure how reliable it can be used to make the trigger.
Let me understand your need first. You want to make action panos and want to take one row of shots as quickly as possible. You probably do not want to use a detent to slow things down. Am I right?
If your only purpose is to trigger the camera, then there is easier way to do this. You attach 2 metal contacts to 2 upper and lower parts of rotator, when the 2 contacts touch, it trigger the camera. This design can be easier to make for me.

Re: About a detent plunger as microswitch

Thanks for the design. The travel of the detent plunger is just about 1mm, I am not sure how reliable it can be used to make the trigger.
Let me understand your need first. You want to make action panos and want to take one row of shots as quickly as possible. You probably do not want to use a detent to slow things down. Am I right?
If your only purpose is to trigger the camera, then there is easier way to do this. You attach 2 metal contacts to 2 upper and lower parts of rotator, when the 2 contacts touch, it trigger the camera. This design can be easier to make for me.

Nick

Hi Nick that should work, I do preffer micro switch for the way it works, mean the fast change of the ON-OFF, I had a self made remote initially using push button and it was making multiple contact at pushing due to, say, almost ON state, my actual remote is made from a small computer mouse because it has micro switch.
Another variant inbeetween will be to mount a reliable micro switch on unoccupied hole of the RD and having a ring with 12 holes under the rotator, on those holes some plastic, or metalic, simple plunger can be inserted, and so to program the switching position

Re: About a detent plunger as microswitch

Hi Dorin,
if you want to make action pano&#039;s, search for Peter Murphy or visit http://www.mediavr.com/blog/
Peter uses a motor and continuing clicks..
Mount a R1/R10 on such motor and you are king of action pano&#039;s
Don&#039;t bother Nick with the clickball trigger design.
The man has other things to do :-)))))))))))))
grtz
Frank

Re: About a detent plunger as microswitch

Hi Frank thanks, I&#039;m aware of Peter Murphy work using an electric driver.
The micro switch triggererd by the rotator free the camera of countinuos shooting, that&#039;s all.

About what Nick has to do, the DSLRs become powerfull and smaller and cheaper, I&#039;m not saying that Canon make new cheap cameras but the new models makes the last year model more affordable. I&#039;m sure that many amators will switch from point and shoot to such DSLRs.
The amators are the main future pano makers because they want to add some "wow" on their photos and using a cheap DSLR with the kit lens or with a Fisheye lens they can do easily, the only thing they need is a panohead simple strong and also cheap and having the reputaion of NodalNinja in quality and customer support.
Sure this has not to do with the click design. The click design is only for advanced rotators.

Re: About a detent plunger as microswitch

Hi Frank thanks, I&#039;m aware of Peter Murphy work using an electric driver.
The micro switch triggererd by the rotator free the camera of countinuos shooting, that&#039;s all.

About what Nick has to do, the DSLRs become powerfull and smaller and cheaper, I&#039;m not saying that Canon make new cheap cameras but the new models makes the last year model more affordable. I&#039;m sure that many amators will switch from point and shoot to such DSLRs.
The amators are the main future pano makers because they want to add some "wow" on their photos and using a cheap DSLR with the kit lens or with a Fisheye lens they can do easily, the only thing they need is a panohead simple strong and also cheap and having the reputaion of NodalNinja in quality and customer support.
Sure this has not to do with the click design. The click design is only for advanced rotators.

Dorin

Hi Dorin,

Have you try to trigger the camera in very short interval, say to take 4 shot in 2-3 seconds? I wonder if the camera is responsive enough.

Re: About a detent plunger as microswitch

Have you try to trigger the camera in very short interval, say to take 4 shot in 2-3 seconds? I wonder if the camera is responsive enough.

nick

Hi Nick, yes, I tried before and I did again just couple minutes ago to be sure.
My camera, Canon 350D, on manual mode, is very responsive.
There are some limitation on RAWs and the speed of the CF, but on jpegs there are no limitation at all, seems to be able to shoot a fast series until the CF is full. Hoever those limitations are very much present in continuous shooting as well.